The Last Bender, Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

          But first I had to check the files. My violation of their lives would be routine and methodical. Packets of letters opened. Bills examined. Searching for the private journals. I went back to the office and sat down in the soft rolling chair behind the desk, breathing in the faint devotional odor.

          A lot had been cleared out of the files but I found in Lafferty’s cabinet a memo from St. Claude to Stanislau. It outlined a series of experiments in the neurophysics of rationality. It said, ‘I believe rational thinking can be organically accelerated to machine like speeds.’ Then a crumpled piece of paper with the word ‘fungus’ scribbled on it.

          I felt suddenly cold and clammy. My tongue dried up like a sponge. My field of vision widened. I had become so absorbed in the memo, I didn’t notice the man. He must have walked in and sat down in the chair. As he materialized he yanked me out of the memo and into a violent impulse. Ten years earlier I would have shot him to pieces.

          “I wouldn’t reach for it now,” he said. “You’re off by two seconds. A long time, Bartell. But about what I expected.” He shook his head. “You corporate dicks are worse than cops when it comes to soft. How long have you been at the small end of this stick? Hey Bartell, me and the Fat Lady here are ready to hear you sing.”

          His voice was constricted by a furious scorn. His clothes were cheap; a pinstripe suit as rumpled as pajamas, battered fedora, worn cuffs and scuffed cockroach stompers. He pointed the revolver at me from his lap. If he shot from there he’d burn his balls but I wasn’t about to argue. He gave the ottoman a violent shove; it rolled across the floor and stopped in front of the desk.

          “Get up real slow and have a seat where I can see you. In my kind of mood, another dead duck don’t matter.”

          I got up like he asked and sat down in front of him.

          “That’s fine,” he said.

          “What next?”

          “It all depends on what kind of answers I get. What’re you doing here?”

          “You seem to know all about my business. You tell me.”

          He looked at his gun. “We’re asking the questions here.”

          “Yeah, you and that snake. Put it down and tell me who you are, then maybe I can squawk a bit.”

          He dipped his head towards my gun. “Mine’s in the hand. The name’s Johnny Braque. I’m a detective.”

          “The face behind the post-it. Well Johnny Braque, let’s hear your play by play.”

          “I called you first,” he said.

          “And I’m hanging up,” I said.

          “You gonna hang up on this?” he said showing his pistol.

          “If I get a busy signal,” I said.

          “What if no one’s home?”

          “Then I leave a message.”

          “Maybe the machine’s broken.”

          “Maybe the phone’s unplugged.”

          “Could be in the lines.”

          “Yeah, could be that, or you got the wrong number.”

          “Oh, I got the right number.”

          “Then I think you misdialed.”

          “I’ll try again.”

          “Send it in a letter. My advice is to not let the boys in. Go back to your chess game. Leave it alone.”

          “I figured you for stonewall, not iron curtain, Bartell. You’re sitting on top of a multiple homicide. Peter Lafferty is my client. I’ve been tailing Stanislau for weeks. Right through Saturday night.”

           “So what, the guy likes to work on Saturday. You want me to call in a Rabbi?”

          He scowled. He had a long, bony face and bad teeth. “I haven’t been lobotomized Bartell, I read the papers and watch the news.” He laughed and shook out a cigarette which he lit, coughing on the first drag. “Stani was one clean whistle, I’ll tell you that. But Lafferty told me to stay on his ass. I wasn’t getting mixed up in some high tech soap opera. Next thing I know they got a gizmo in my head and blue gel coming outta my armpits, right? But after what I saw Saturday night–I’m not out here to get paid. I’m here to clean it up.”

          I laughed. “You aren’t big enough for it. A guy like you, every now and then he gets what looks like a break coming in, but goes out kicking him in the ass. And now you’re thinking, ‘Maybe this one’s different. Maybe this one’s gonna make me some big money.’ High-end docs, skyscraper dicks, and psycho-myco-pharmacology. You’ve been spitting nails at the mirror so long it looks like the real thing. Go try your routine out on blockhead cops. Cause if there’s any meat in this pot of shit, you ain’t eatin’ it, bub.”

          He stomped on the cigarette with his heal. “I only lose money,” he said, standing to walk it off. He checked out the bookcase. I shifted around on the ottoman. He took out a pipe from his coat pocket, filled it and started puffing, till bittersweet smoke engulfed his face. “You like to read, Jack?” he asked, turning in my direction.

          “I used to. I might start again.”

          “Ever think of all the harm done by books? It’s all in there. Every stupid thing a human ever did. Books are a place to revel in the bad deeds of the world’s biggest losers. Achilles stews over some whore his boss wants for himself. He won’t fight till his boy friend’s dragged through shit by the heals. I read all the time Bartell. I’m trying to imagine what happened in that Lab.”

          “What’s the point?” I asked, choking on all the smoke.

          “I was there on Saturday night. I saw you arrive. I’ve been following you around ever since. So don’t yank my goat. You did the three short necks in the warehouse. Who’s bomb was it? Yours or theirs?”

          I was outraged. “You followed me? You let those gonads embalm me in my own house?”

          “I ain’t your seein’ eye dog.”

          “Yeah, well neither am I, Braque.”

          He sat down in the desk chair and leaned back with his hands behind his head. “I got something Jack. But it won’t stick. Not without you.”

          “Whuddya mean not without me?”

          He sat forward, his lips grim, blue eyes screwed into my sockets. “You can pin it on the right chest Jack. All you got to do is crow.”

          I didn’t even start laughing till after two full breaths. “My god!” I said after I had calmed down enough to speak. “Oh. It’s been a bad few days, Braque; you just reset my clock. Now let’s get down to business. What do you have and what are you asking?”

          He shook his head and messed with the papers on the desk. “I’m a funny guy,” he said. “I got some even funnier jokes if you’re prepared to listen.”

          “Yeah sure, do it your way. I’m a captive audience.”

          “You had a janitor who worked that night. I talked him up at the bar Sunday morning after his shift. He had an accident on the way home. They picked him out of the bark with tweezers.”

          “That’s very suspicious indeed, when a drunk can’t see the road.”

          “Yeah,” he said, “if he’s been drinking.”

          “And your boy hadn’t.”

          “Not a drop. We drank cokes and ate a sandwich.”

          “And?”

          “The guy said he ran Zamboni on a clean up job in one of the labs. Said it was covered in blood. This guy–“

          “Is buried face down in some veteran’s memorial park out in Guernsey with a little flag sticking up out of his ass. Anyway,” I said swallowing lather, “What makes you think I care what happened to St. Claude and his crew? People like that have been screwing me all my life. It’s like I got a sign on my forehead that says, ‘open all night, rich motherfuckers fly free.’”

          Now he let the foam fly. “You saw it Jack. You were there. You can stop it happening again.”

          “Stop what?”

          “Don’t tell me the sun’s yellow when every sheep fucking marine knows it’s chicken. Put on the bag and spill.”

          “Not without a tickle I don’t.”

          “I didn’t just loaf on my jewels that night. I got a make on the van when it pulled out.”

          “What van was that?” There was no way I was gonna give him squat.

          “The one they got away in.” I had him talking in a pained, facetious undertone.

          “You don’t know shit. You weren’t there that night.”

          “I WATCHED each one WALK into that front door. Not one left by it. Then they start slamming car doors across the street. This van tears away. I made the plates. It’s leased to some Horizon Corporation out in Pine Point. It’s all a front. Horizon lists St. Claude as CEO and Hubble Watts as CFO. It owns St. Claude’s house.”

          “You got any more?”

          “No,” his voice dropped in disappointment. “No, that’s where it died on me. That’s why I need you. Lafferty’s got to be with them. I’ve got to find St. Claude.”

          “You and who else. Got any ideas?”

          “No, but I got an idea of what he may be up to.” He pointed to the filing cabinet. “You read the memo?”

          “Maybe.”

          “Look. They were taking some drug. A smart drug. Lafferty tried to tell me about it, but I had him figured for bonkers. I don’t know anymore. He said he had a memo. He said Stanislau had changed. The guy goes math wiz at fifty. And loony to boot. Started callin’ my client things like, ‘you detestable little bug.’ Gave up doin’ the nasty, meat, things like that.

          “Bartell–last Thursday night, Lafferty tells me, ‘They’re raising a puppet army.’ That’s it.” He moved out from behind the desk and stood in front of me. He lit up a cigarette and coughed on the first drag, like before. “If they did make that drug,” he said, “just think of all the people who might want it.”

          I mumbled to myself, “That would explain Laraby.”

          “Your boss is a pip squeak. It’s time for you to stop sucking on your own asshole and take a look around. You can’t cover up a murder like that and get St. Claude back, not unless you kill everyone but him. That’s what Laraby is up to now. He’s using you to get at every link in the chain. Then it’ll be the framus.”

          “He’s too cautious for that,” I said.

          “He doesn’t write his own music Jack, and neither do you.”